No, not that St. Ives, silly! That's famously down in Cornwall and is a totally different story. This one is in Cambridgeshire, and for no other reason than it's on the way to somewhere else.

Not exactly corralled, more, erm, actively encouraged to sign up a few years ago, the idea of getting back into 'profit' might be false, but here's an opportunity to recoup some investment at RSPB™ Fen Drayton Lakes.

The problem with that, though, is Fen Drayton Lakes is now Fen Drayton Lake, thanks to several days of torrential rain, which happily hung around inland and didn't dampen the spirits on the East Coast.

Huntingdon is on the horizon, but possibly too far for this fizzing fuel tank, so the nearest town it is, then, and here we are in St. Ives.

Centuries of droving folk established St. Ives as a lively livestock market, thanks to the convenient crossing point of the river, but more on that in a minute.

Cars and buses now occupy the site, which lasted until 1976 and was second only to London's Smithfield's back in the day of the hey, they say.

A handful of metal bootscrapers at pavement level can still be seen, and are a clue to the former doings along Market Hill, where the beasties were originally traded.

We say 'beasties' because farmers from as far as Scotland arrived via the old A1, and now those roadworks with the A14 are complete, SlyBob's similar trip takes nowhere near the same amount of time.

You get to the old market, by the way, along Oliver Road onto Cromwell Place. Yes, Ollie 'Oliver' Cromwell, lived in St. Ives before going on to embrace republicanism properly.

He can be found here on The Pavement, really, part of a longer and strollable stretch catering mainly to the mainstream.

An odd choice, perhaps, for the puritanical parliamentarian because, thanks to the cattle and the river, St. Ives at one time had 64 pubs!

Not that there's time for any of that today, so what about this river then?

The Great Ouse, of course, the UK's fifth-longest river, and while the name might be a bit overstated, it's living up to its billing today with the level licking the pavement, nearly.

The bridge we're on can be traced to the 15th century and has a chapel halfway along, not shown, which is handy for anyone being baptised this afternoon, eh?

It's bad news for the Dolphin Hotel on the other side; this is normally their car park, and the flooded fields stretch as far as Bob's eyes can still see.

They're not faring much better out front, neither, with any riverside tippling curtailed for the foreseeable.

Market stalls still pepper Market Hill, just not today, and the river is preventing a ramble on Holt Island, a small, local nature reserve.

Browsing knick-knacks in the Courtyard's 'Boutique Market' won't fill a whole afternoon, if only there were some pubs round here?

Thirsty livestockers were the reason for the glut of old boozers, but not nearly so plentiful now. The White Hart is one of seven-or-so, it's thought, although it's not known who won the last Quiz Night.

There used to be 64, you say? 64? How is that even possible?

There aren't that many shops man!